Fresh Paint
by Zaedah
Summary: It looked like an energy crisis being solved through the conservation of human motion.


_Ask not for a reason, dear readers. I have none. But please carry on until the end, no matter how silly it gets..._

* * *

**Fresh Paint**

On the whole, it was completely ludicrous.

The scene was a sparkling chop job, like rigor mortis with fresh paint. Peter said that to someone nearby, a man with thick spectacles who nodded as though the observation made sense. The place smelled far too sanitized to contain eight bodies, armless and rotting. Agents hovered over them and debated which Roman statue each of the dead most closely resembled. He hadn't realized that cultural art classes were part of the bureau curriculum. And anyway, he'd always preferred the Greek.

There wasn't an Aphrodite in the bunch.

Peter wandered among familiar faces, aimless and perhaps rotting. The unhurried and almost sloppy scene processing was rather against protocol, though pointing that out to Dunham earned him a smack on the head, a new move she was trying out. All of this made him feel like one of those celebrity drunks who walk into the wrong house. He mentioned this to someone else, a man with a pencil mustache who threw him to the wall and patted him down for a concealed bottle. He was only released when the raised wallpaper pattern had been snugly embedded on his cheek.

Someone in the back yelled "fore" like a practicing scream queen and a wad of yellow paper soared past his ear. Turning, Peter spotted the offender just before the large woman dropped the implement she'd used as a club.

It was an arm.

So in summary, the quickest movement in the place had been achieved by a paper ball lobbed off the wrist of an appendage. And these were the people entrusted with truth, justice and a loaded weapon.

All in all, it looked like an energy crisis being solved through the conservation of human motion. Any slower and the agents would warp backwards in time and, not surprisingly, the conclusion triggered thoughts of his father. Walter would invent a use far worse than golf for the dislodged arms, thus search mode was initiated to the further peril of Peter's sanity. He was right to worry.

Part autopsy, part buffet.

A woman's arm had been sliced lengthwise and balanced on a platformed food tray, gaudy rings still poised on swollen fingers. Skin flaps held open by toothpicks allowed the old man to bend over the incision and pull at stringy tendons. The tweezers were as chopsticks. There was mumbling, the polite volume saving the hearing audience from the promise of future therapy. Looking up, Walter hefted a toothy grin at his son before plopping bits of a stranger's insides on a styrofoam plate. Whether for deeper study or a snack was indeterminable because shock had already shut down Peter's brain factory and sent the remaining cells to the unemployment line. The windows of reason were boarded up and he could feel cobwebs forming on his slack face.

The spectacled man was sprawled on the floor, measuring the height of the victims by the unscientific method of comparison. Another agent, squatting next to a young lady who'd never hug again, was too busy copping a feel to mind the door. Civilians were sneaking in to see the slo-mo circus.

Someone shouted for a hacksaw.

Limbs were a nuisance and for easier transport the legs of the deceased went the way of their arms. An unconventional golf tournament couldn't be far behind. On cue, there was a discussion of handicaps while Walter began sniffing his borrowed innards. When in his wrinkled hand a fork materialized, Peter shoved his way to the door. The heaving started in the alley… and ended on a mattress.

On the whole, it was completely ludicrous.

By the time Peter finished retelling the dream, Olivia's laughter had turned seismic. The bed posts shook with it, slapping the paneling in time with his still-panting breaths. Indignation was difficult to pull off when this was the nonsense that woke him screaming. Like a girl. In diapers.

Why couldn't he dream of Aphrodite?


End file.
